If it's not in the rules, it's not in the game

The rules you live by create the life you have.

Tabletop roleplaying games are a big part of my life. I’ve played Dungeons and Dragons for decades. Then, for the past few years, I’ve been exploring other systems with different philosophies of play.

As you delve into the game mastering side of the internet you’ll eventually encounter this maxim, “if it’s not in the rules, it’s not in the game.” Without established rules to cover a situation, that situation doesn’t really fit into the game. Sure you can wedge it in but anything goes.

The phrase has a little history. There’s one game master camp that favors light rules and game master discretion. On the other side, there’s a camp that favors picking rulesets appropriate to the type of games you want to play. That second camp prefers to have established, agreed-upon rules.

And “if it’s not in the rules, it’s not in the game” was originally used as a jab at people who preferred pre-written rules over more free-form gameplay. Today, the phrase has become a mantra for the people who prefer clear rules.

You’ve got to pick rules that fit the game you want to play.

That’s as far as I’ll go talking about game master ideologies. The reason I tell you this is because this phrase has meaning that extends beyond roleplaying games. It has become something that pops up in my mind frequently. It applies to software frameworks and work methodologies.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how this phrase applies to my life.

What are the rules for your life?

Some people may think they don’t live by rules. Everyone does though.

But then, do you know what your rules are? You have expectations and requirements for your work. You have values and beliefs that guide your actions. You have habits you do unconsciously.

Every day, throughout your day, you are operating by a set of rules. They may not be written but they are there.

I first started thinking about this after I read Atomic Habits by James Clear. Paying attention to my habits helped me see my tendencies to waste a lot of time on things like Reddit and YouTube. I only read that book because I had already noticed I wasn’t really progressing on things that mattered to me.

There were rules to my life that didn’t make sense. There were also rules missing.

So, I started cutting back on things that were wasting a lot of my time. It’s easier said than done. I was opening Reddit habitually at any moment of boredom. I would have moments where I realized I was scrolling, and think “what the fuck am I doing here again?”

I installed a tool to block myself from Reddit completely. I installed similar tools to reduce my time on YouTube.

On the other side of that I’ve experimented with rules that bring more of what I want into my life.

Bored? Read a book.

Want to paint more? Do it every day for a month.

Your rules make you who you are.

Complex systems develop properties by following a set of simple rules. This is called emergence. In systems, individual rules do not directly provide properties. Instead, multiple rules operating together create new properties.

We identify and name emergent properties. Traffic and traffic jams are emergent properties of multiple individual cars driving on a shared road. Wetness is a property that comes from multiple molecules interacting together. A single water molecule is not “wet.”

Our identities are an emergent property of the things we think and do. Spend seven hours a day watching TikTok? Sounds like you’re a social media addict. Spend seven hours a day painting trees? Sounds like you’re a painter.

One time, some years back, I remember someone asking me if I’m a gamer. As I said “yea, I play video games,” I felt some agitation. That moment made me stop and think about why I felt this way. I’ve never liked the term “gamer.” Later I realized that I didn’t like how much time I spent playing video games. It wasn’t the term as much as what it represented about the rules that were directing my life.

Don’t like what you are? Change what you do.

Change the rules, change the game.

There’s a Jim Rohn saying I like that goes “if you want change, you’ve got to change.” But then, what does it actually mean to change? And then, how do you do it?

I’m writing this on a day where I just finished my third straight month of daily journaling. This completes the notebook I’ve been using. The journaling method I use is the morning pages. That is to say, I vomit words onto the page until I fill a preselected amount of space. After that, I sit back and think about what I wrote.

There are a lot of methods for changing the rules of your life.

The habit camp seems pretty big right now. There are also new takes on stoicism and minimalism. Some people try to adopt work frameworks to their life like Sprints and OKRs. All of these have some elements of truth to them.

To me, there’s one rule to rule them all. There is no way to change without understanding what it is you’re trying to change.

If you don’t know the rules, you can’t adjudicate them.

This isn’t a new idea. Philosophers and poets have been evangelizing knowing yourself for millennia. Jim Rohn was a strong advocate for journaling.

So, if I have one recommendation to give it is to start some kind of regular reflection. I like the morning pages but do whatever works for you.

When you do, think about your own rules. Only then can you change the game you’re playing.